This year’s Christian Aid Week appeal is focussing on the organisation’s work in Burundi, one of the most densely populated and poorest countries in Africa. Heavily reliant on agriculture, it’s also one of the least prepared to combat the effects of climate change, including droughts, floods and landslides. The global cost of living crisis has intensified the challenges: more than 70 per cent of the population live in poverty and more than half of children are chronically malnourished.

Christian Aid has been working in Burundi since 1995 when it first offered humanitarian assistance to people surviving the civil conflict. Now, alongside local partners, the organisation helps establish Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs).

These community-led groups mean people can save and borrow money, making small businesses possible, offering reliable and diverse incomes so families can eat regularly, get medicine when they need it, and build safer homes.

Christian Aid supports people of all faiths and none.

• £5 could buy the savings book that will help someone set up the small business that enables them to escape the inhumanity of poverty
• £27 could buy the lockable safe that protects a community’s savings, hopes and dreams
• £100 could provide 10 people with the training that supports their families to set up small businesses, such as selling home-grown vegetables